With rapid growth of mobile data transfer over a high-speed communication network such as 3G or 4G cellular services, managing and routing such data transfer efficiently become increasingly difficult. A conventional network layout, for example, typically includes various networks, such as Internet, local area network (“LAN”), wireless local area network (“WLAN”), and cellular radio network. A conventional mobile or wireless network may include 3rd Generation Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (“3G UMTS”), long term evolution (“LTE”), 3rd Generation Partnership Project 2 (“3GPP2”) and/or Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (“WiMAX”). A typical network layout includes hundreds of network devices such as access switches, routers, and bridges used for data delivery from source devices to destination devices.
A drawback associated with a typical user equipment “UE” or user device is that it is often difficult to determine which packet flow(s) can be offloaded to WLAN while other packet flow(s) continues to go through the cellular network. To reduce traffic load on a cellular network, network operator often prefers to shift traffic loading to WLAN whenever it is possible when UE is able to access to both cellular network and WLAN.
A conventional approach to improve UE's ability to decide which traffic should be offloaded to Wi-Fi is to use Access Network Discovery and Selection Function (“ANDSF”). However, a problem associated with ANDSF is that it requires substantial computing power which often is not available in a UE. Another problem associated with ANDSF operated at the UE end is that ports or addresses may dynamically change over time for various reasons such as network securities or detection avoidance.